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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^' 




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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGIG DELATIONS OF THE CANADIAN 

STATES AND THE UNITED STATES, FBOSPECT- 

IVELY CONSIDEBED. 



ADDRESS 



BY 



CHARLES S. HILL, 



VICE PRESIDENT, SECTION I, 



BEFORE THE 



SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS, 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 



At the Toronto Meeting, 



August, 1889. 



From the Proceedings op the American Association for the Advancement 
OF Science, Vol. xxxviii. 






printed by 

the salem press publishing and printing co., 

SALEM, MASS. 

1890. 






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\ 



Cj 



4 



ADDRESS 

BT 

CHARLES S. HILL. 

Vice President, Section I. 



ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGIC BELATIONS OF THE CANADIAN 
STATES AND THE UNITED STATES, PROSPECT- 
IVELY CONSIDERED. 



What God hath joined together" — no man can rend asunder. 



Joined by natural conditions of creation, by ties of consanguin- 
ity and language, by bans of matrimony and posterity, these two 
peoples, assembled here to-day, of the Canadian States and the 
United States, must eventually be one and inseparable — inevita- 
bly. 

Our relations with the Canadian people are closer than our re- 
lations with those of any of our sister American Republics, although 
of similar form of government, because of the difference in the lan- 
guage of the latter. 

The science of God in nature is far grander than the science of 
man in art. 

In His infinite wisdom our topographic conditions are one and 
inseparable. 

By His divine will our language of communication is one and 
the same, and the Christian cross is our religious emblem of one 
faith, whether of the Anglican, Roman or Grecian branch of the 
church. 

These are the unifying elements which render our destiny one as 
a people and one in government. 

These conditions are de facto and unchangeable, therefore they 
need no consideration. 

(3) 



4: SECTION I. 

Our economic and soeiologic relations are problematic, and an 
analj'sis of the prospective conditions thereof can but be of bene- 
fit and interest in anticipation of union or not, but the union of 
these two peoples in one government eventuallj^ is as certain as the 
union of territory is now definite and unalterable. 

Two committees of the United States Congress are already in the 
field studying this problem from a political point of view, and that 
a lively and important discussion will take place at the coming 
session of Congress in Washington next winter is very certain. 

Grave and serious may be the immediate results of the coming 
consideration as an international question, in view of the remark- 
able existing and rapidly developing conditions that are assuming 
such complicated features, but the ultimate result will be annex- 
ation and consolidation. 

In view of the existing conditions on the one hand and the pro- 
spective conditions on the other, there seems to be no more perti- 
nent and important an economic problem for consideration before 
this Section to-day. 

I shall not pretend to anal3'ze each specific subject of these con- 
ditions in cause and result, but merely open a discussion as to the 
economic measures and soeiologic benefits to be attained in the 
future ; nor shall I burden you with statistical data more than in 
a few tabulations, for such are familiar to 3'ou all. 

The many distinguished economists of scientific study and world- 
renowned fame attending this convention, and who have recorded 
special papers to be presented to you during our sessions, will more 
ably interest and inform 3'ou. 

When we compare our natural conditions with those of the many 
peoples of the Old World, what a mighty contrast is presented, 
and what a volume of thought is suggested. 

On this new continent the English tongue has sounded over 
lakes, reechoed over the plains, and reverberated over seven mil- 
lions square miles, from ocean to ocean, obliterating the dialect of 
hundreds of thousands of immigrants yearly and silencing in exter- 
mination the tongues of the aborigines. 

On the old continent we find different peoples and hear different 
tongues within the short distance of every few hundred thousand 
square miles. From the Hebrides of Europe to the Himalayas of 
Asia, to the far north of Siberia, we listen to a confusion of lan- 
guages, find a variety of religions and religious superstitions, and 
we see that even rivers, as well as 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. O 

" Mountains, interposed, malie enemies of nations 
That else, like kindred drops, have mingled into one." 

With us a continent is being developed into homogeneity by the 
inspiring and subduing force of the English language, and what is 
being done on this continent is also being done the world over, and 
by the same cause — the unification of the English-speaking people. 

OUR ECONOMIC RELATIONS. 

Of the United States, what can be said? 

Endowed with wonderful and unexampled prosperity that have 
blessed us for a century of years, through great vicissitudes of po- 
litical circumstances, in peace and in war ; in the possession of a 
soil that has yielded far more than, ample harvest for our wants of 
every character ; in the knowledge of owning vast undeveloped 
mineral resources of untold and inestimable wealth ; under an es- 
tablished economic policy of government laid down by our fathers, 
who framed our Constitution and who enjoined upon us to follow 
their policy, and which has only twice been interrupted by indis- 
creet and ruinous political passion in legislation — it appears natu- 
ral that our neighbors and friends of the Dominion of Canada 
should be blessed with like possession of riches in geological, agri- 
cultural, and industrial development, at present denied them by 
legislative limitation and requirements, not necessary to dwell up- 
on here. 

It seems to us, blest with such past and prospective prosperity, 
singular tliat you of Canada should not be unanimously anxious to 
become united to such a people and form of government. 

And of Canada, what? 

The etymologic significance of the lndia.n Kannatha is no longer 
applicable to the Dominion of these great Provinces ; La Nouvelle 
France has long since lost its significance, if not its identity. 

Relatively in resources the present 'Canada is as wonderfully 
wealthy, as rich in fertility of soil, and as progressive in enterprise 
and genius as is the United States. During the last decade the 
Dominion has made more rapid strides in the utilization of her pos- 
sessions and opportunities than ever before. 

The vast area of the Dominion offers a supply of several natural 
products in greater abundance than the United States, and even 
some which we do not possess. 

With a climate varied but little from our own, except in the most 



6 SECTION I. 

northern part, tliere appears in the near future a grand prospect 
for immense settlement and great prosperity. 

But the historic phrase of British North America is even now a 
misnomer and will soon become obsolete. 

There are " Three Americas" — North, Central and South. Of 
the first, from the Arctic to the Gulf there can be but one people 
eventually, of one language and of one government. 

The similitude of Republican government between the United 
States and Central America is a tie of strong sympathy, but lan- 
guage and consanguinity bind us closer to you of Canada. 

It has been truly said that the ties of blood were stronger than 
water, but it may be added that ties of language, religion and 
blood must, sooner or later, blend us, now two peoples, into one. 



UNIVERSAL CONDITIONS. 

Let us then consider the conditions and prospects that we find 
before us. 

A commercial union is impracticable, for there must first be uni- 
versalitj^ in political government, as well as in economic and so- 
ciologic conditions and national assimilation. 

It would be preposterous to establish a free-trade policy with 
Canada and preserve a protection policy with England. The side- 
door entrance would be used exclusively for commercial inter- 
course with Great Britain and the trade of our Atlantic and Pacific 
seaport cities would be ruined and the prosperity that our mer- 
chants have enjoyed would be known no more forever. The em- 
ployment which thej' now distribute to the poorer classes of those 
thickly-settled and thriving cities would be not only interrupted, 
but destroyed. Loss of wages, idleness, discontent and strife, 
would result as surely as such a basis of intercourse should be es- 
tablished with a people that belonged to and were under the govern- 
ment of a European nation. Were you of Canada an independent 
people a commercial union would be a very different matter for 
consideration. 

But as long as the Canadian people are under the control of 
the British government, which now rules the seas and the com- 
merce of the world, to open such a side door of traffic would be 
cutting the artery of our industiy and bleeding of our workmen 
to death. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. / 

A commercial union witli Canada would, of course, be practi- 
cally a commercial union or a free-trade traffic with Great Britain. 

As well might we establish the union direct and better that we 
declare free trade to the world. 

Assimilation of political interests must come before a "commer- 
cial union" is possible. 

How shall it come? The United States cannot court it or ten- 
der a protectorate to the Dominion. It would be directly contrary 
to our national policy to acquire territory by means of aggression. 

Canada must be the suitor. She must make her peace with her 
home government and obtain the consent of mother England be- 
fore entering into a matrimonial alliance with ourselves. Whether 
the United States must assume the debt of Canada or pay a con- 
sideration in money will be a question of agreement. 

GOVERNMENT. 

Autocracy, plutocracy, democracy, which? 

For one hundred 3'ears the people of Canada have failed to be- 
come assimilated even in themselves. 

For one hundred years the people of the United States have 
been banded as one, except during the brief period of political pas- 
sion — in which the flames and fury of prejudice were fanned by in- 
fluences from abroad — and by ignorance of true politico-economic 
principles at home ; but the dark cloud of strife and difference 
has passed, and now, more purified in love and stronger in reason 
for the sad lesson learned, we are one, "now and forever." 

Why, then, this great contrast in similitude of conditions exist- 
ing between two people, side by side ? 

It is because of the difference in form of government. 

Ex-President White, of Cornell University says that — 

"The first requisite to a good government is to educate the great mass 
of citizens to the point of grasping simple pohtical questions," 

and so it is emphatically. 

Between autocracy and democracy there seems to have sprung 
up a fear of plutocracy, or rule of wealth, in our remarkably pros- 
perous country, but that fear can be calmed by the reflection that 
in the country where the poor man has an equal chance with the 
rich man — provided that industry and integrity are equally prom- 
inent — plutocracy is impossible. 



8 SECTION I. 

The Premier of Canada, Sir John Maedonald, is, of course, in 
his earnest loyalty to England, a zealous monarchist, and has no 
taste for the agitation about the question of annexation of his peo- 
ple to ours, for he well knows that it could only be done by re- 
nouncing the autocracy of the royal family and assuming the de- 
mocracy of our people. 

It is to his wisdom and foresight, however, that Canada owes 
her progressiveness and advancement in the last ten years ; but it 
would be only fatality that caused him to realize that his sliilful 
statesmanship and economic judgment only hastened the accom- 
plishment of annexation to our people's government — the last re- 
sult that he desired. 

Perhaps the most witty observation upon this subject has come 
from the Hon. Mr. Chapleau, Canadian Secretary of State, at a 
dinner in Montreal recently, viz. : that, while he did not wish to 
disparage the United States he would say that if they were to 
annex themselves to Canada it would be good for them. But 
he erred very much in the prospective view when he added that 
"these movements towards the United States mean only one thing — 
destruction to Canadian industries," for such has not been the ex- 
perience of any state or territory of our Union. 

Mr. Erastus Wiman, who is well informed concerning the in- 
terests and circumstances governing both peoples, says he regarded 
it as 

"Unfortunate that the whole continent was not included in the Ameri- 
can Revolution. Only Great Britain's liberal policy, which she exercises 
toward her vast western colony, and which she learned to be imperative 
for peace one hundred years ago, has made possible the continued colon- 
ial existence of Canada. The Dominion is to-day intensely loyal to the 
English government, because of the extended influence of the Orangemen, 
who resist the encroachments aliivC of Americanism and Catholicism; be- 
cause of the six hundred and fifty millions of dollars of British capital in- 
vested in Canadian enterprises; because of the influx of British emigration, 
which deliberately chooses British land in which to live and because of 
the undesirable character of the exiles who seek in Canada immunity from 
punishment for crime committed in the United States." 

To take a view from another side, which is the only just means 
of learning the true sentiment of a people, let us listen to the ex- 
pression of the Premier of the province of Quebec, the Hon. Hon- 
ors Mercier, who says that ^^ Quebec is a British colony only in 
name." 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. » 

He adds — 

"The aspirations and ideals of lier people are as un-British as they well 
can be, and tlieir hearts beat for France and not for Britain. It is not 
the record of Saxon achievements that stirs their pulses. 

^'With two races that have spilled each other's blood on half a hundred 
fields from the days of Agincourt down to Waterloo, Canadian statesmen 
are trying to build up a nation, and after more than a century of inter- 
mingling the matei'ials are found to be as incongruous and as unmixable 
as they were on the day when the fleu7--de-Ujs bowed its splendors before 
the valor of "Wolfe under the walls of Quebec. Who will say that the 
tasli is not a colossal one? It begins to look as if it were a hopeless 
one." 

Premier Mercier presents the point of consideration forcibly for 
reflection upon tlie contrast between tlie people of Canada and of 
the United States : 

"How comes it, Americans may ask, that Canada has failed to assimi- 
late the French Canadians, when the states have assimilated and made 
American citizens of the people of every clime on the globe?" 

Here is strikingly impressed the influence upon the spirit of the 
people under an autocratic in distinction from those under a dem- 
ocratic form of government. 

UNRESTRICTED TRADE. 

Do reciprocity treaties reciprocate ? 

This question requires careful consideration and reflection, much 
more than it is possible to present to you in an address tliis even- 
ing, and certainly much more than seems to be given b}' the ma- 
jor part of political representatives of either nation. 

Reciprocity treaties are generally economic and sociologic, and 
are termed ^'Commercial and Amity Treaties." 

The former comes under this division of ray argument because 
it is a contribution to or deduction from the public revenue of a 
people and should be framed by a practical body of economists and 
business men, not by politicians. The latter comes under the 
following division because it is a diplomatic tie governing the so- 
ciologic conditions of one nation with another, and may be, per- 
haps, more happily drafted by the genial warm-hearted, and the- 
oretical diplomatist than by the cold, hard-headed, calculating, 
and money-making mercliant. 

Reciprocal treaties are good enough so far as they protect against 
2 



10 SECTION I. 

discrirainations of trade tricks in the ports of two countries, but 
for growing countries like the United States and Canada to be cir- 
cumscribed and handicapped by bodies of diplomatic obligation 
against economic interests and development is absurd. For in- 
stance, we find ourselves, by our infantile treaty of 1818 with Eng- 
land, which we have outgrown, ridiculously appearing as an over- 
grown man wearing the short clothes of boyhood, mortified and 
smarting yearly under the obligation to our parent countr}', which 
is now infinitely the smaller, to the disparagement of our com- 
mercial interests of the breaking of good faith. 

To show this absurdity authoritatively, however, and the danger 
of short-sighted, so-called reciprocit}'- treaties, I quote from a report 
of the Committee on Commerce of the United States House of Rep- 
resentatives, May 28, 1842, made through its chairman, Hon. John 
P. Kennedy, of Maryland, a statesman and economist. That Re- 
port, No. 835, 27th Congress, 2d session, page 27, says : 

"The aim of our Government has been to establish reciprocity in trade. 

***** 

"It seems to have been imagined that reciprocity consisted in equal 
privileges of importation and exportation in our own vessels and the ves- 
sels of the nation with which we establislied these relations; that the 
greater the scope given to these privileges of import and export, the 
nearer the approach to perfect reciprocity." 

This Committee of Congress did not make a superficial research 
into the cause of civil results in our commercial conditions, but 
thoroughly cut to the germ of the disease by analytical dissection, 
as will be seen by reference to that remarkable document : 

"Our commerce has been proffered to the world upon terms dictated by 
the most friendly disposition, and with a sincere desire to give the utmost 
scope to the expansion of commei-cial adventure." * * * 

"Our citizens have acquiesced for years in these arrangements, under 
the specious delusion that, as the system professed to be one of reciprocal 
advantage, we have gained by it reciprocal freedom of trade." 

The Report adds with severe comment : 

"The Committee have already pointed out the fruits of. this reciprocity." 

It is of interest here to examine the record of our treaties so as 
to place correctly in the mind the character and date of each that 
we have made with nations professedly reciprocating the benefits 
anticipated and to judge of the results. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 11 



TREATIES, OBSOLETE AND EXISTING. 

The first commercial treaty of our country ever made was with 
France, in 1778, but it was afterward broken by that country in 
its principles of amity and economic relations, which caused an 
interruption of our navigation and commerce upon the Atlantic 
Ocean. 

The order and date of these treaties under the old Government 
were, viz. : 

Old Confederation. 

1778, Feb. 6 France .... Amity and commerce. 

1782, Oct. 8 Netherlands . . Amity and commerce. 

1782, Oct. 8 Netherlands . . Recaptured vessels. 

1783, Jan. 20 Great Britain . . Armistice. 

1783, Apr. 3 Sweden . . . Amity and commerce. 

1783, Sept. 8 Great Britain . Peace. 

1785, July 9, 28; Aug. 5, Sept. 10 Prussia . . . Amity and commerce. 

1788, Nov. 14 France .... Consular. 

These were all the treaties of the original Government, made 
from the date of rebellion against British Commercial Taxation to 
the reorganization under the title of United States of America, 
March 4, 1789. 

Under the reorganized Government our first treaty with Great 
Britain was of Peace, Amity, and Commerce, dated November 19, 
1794. It was the first treaty under the Constitution of the United 
States, and signed by "Grenville" and John Jay, to which was af- 
terward appended an additional and an explanatory article signed 
hy "Bond" and Timothy Pickering. This treaty, however, although 
fully detailed specifically, was not in force long, but supplemented, 
as will be here shown, by sharp diplomacy to the disadvantage of 
our people from the year 1815 to the present day. 

The schedule of existing commercial treaties is as follows : 

Reciprocal Commercial Treaties of the United States existing at 
present (alphabetically arranged) . 



Nation. Date of Treaty. 

Argentine Confedei-ation... July 27, 1853 

Austria-Hungary Aug. 27, 1829 

Belgium Mar. 8, 1875 

Bolivia May 13, 1858 

Brazil. Dec. 12, 1828 

Chili May 16, 1832 



Nation. Date of Treaty. 

Corea June 4, 1883 

Costa Rica July 10, 1851 

Denmark April 26, 1826 

Dominican Republic Feb. 8, 1867 

Equador June 13, 1839 

France Sept. 30, 1800 



China Nov. 17, 1880 I Germany July 3, 1815 



12 



SECTION I. 



Nation. Date of Treaty. 

Great Britain ^ J"ly 3, 1815 

Supplemented ] Oct. 20, 1818 

Renewed ^ Aug. 6, 1827 

Greece Dec. 10-22, 1837 

Guatemala Mar. 3, 1849 

Hanover June 10, 

Haiiseatic Republics Dec. 20, 

Hawaiian Islands Jan. 30, 

Hayti Nov. 3, 

H ondiiras July 4, 

Italy Feb. 26, 

Japan July 25, 

Liberia Oct. 21, 

Madagascar Mar. 13, 

Mexico Jan. 20, 

Morocco Sept. 16, 

Muscat Sept. 21, 

Netherlands , Oct. 8, 

Supplemented ^ Jan. 19, 



Renewed Aug. 26, 



1846 
1827 
1875 
1864 
1864 
1871 
1878 
1862 
1883 
1883 
1836 
1833 
1782 
1839 
1852 



Nation. Date of Treaty. 

New Granada Dec. 12, 1846 

Nicaragua June 21, 

Norway July 

Ottoman Empire Feb. 

Paraguay Feb. 

Persia Dec. 

Peru Sept. 

Portugal Aug. 

Prussia May 

Russia Dec. 1-13, 

Salvador Dec 

Sa moa Jan. 

Siam Dec. 17-31, 1876 

Spain July 22, 1819 

Sweden (see also Norway) July 24, 1827 

Swiss Confederation Nov. 25, 18.'J0 

Tripoli June 4, 

Tunis July 24, 

Turkey (see Ottoman Empire), 
Venezuela Aug 27, 



21, 


1867 


4, 


1827 


25, 


1803 


4, 


1859 


13, 


1856 


6, 


1870 


26, 


1840 


1, 


1828 


-13, 


1832 


6, 


1870 


17, 


1878 



1805 
1824 



1860 



This list includes only those of Commerce and Navigation and does not 
include Treaties of Peace and Amity. 

How far these Reciprocal Treaties have really effected a recip- 
rocation and benefit to our trade — even where most effective — is a 
question to which we should give careful examination, and it is the 
duty of every business man to consider the same, as they deeply 
affect his financial interest. 

Since the adoption of our Constitution one hundred and thirty 
Eeciprocal Commercial Treaties have been made valid, of which 
seventy-seven have become obsolete., and the fifty, recorded above, 
remain in force. These Reciprocity treaties have been of varied 
purport, viz. : " Consular," " favored nation privileges," "real es- 
tate," " personal property," " privileges to vessels," " merchants," 
etc. 

It would be tiresome to detail the particulars of the good and 
bad contained in the multifarious assortment of international law 
that these Treaties present. 

True, the Peace Treaty of 1815 established an era of pacifica- 
tion throughout Europe and America. Industrial enterprise and 
commercial rivalry were actively inaugurated, and, as usual under 
excitement of competition, every advantage for the securing of 
trade was studied, and hence the greatest commercial freedom and 
privileges in navigation were offered by our statesmen to foreign 
nations in the hope of outrivaling our rivals for the great trade in 
industry of our recent enemy in war. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 13 

Thus it was that within six months an agreement was negotiated 
with Great Britain, almost upon her own terms, in peace, after our 
victorious struggle in war, which permitted her to exclude us in 
trade from her colonies, and to gain an advantage over us in navi- 
gation, under a negotiation denominated the "Reciprocal Commer- 
cial Treaty of July 3, 1815." 

This Treaty, extended in 1818 for ten years, was afterward re- 
newed in 1827 for time and eternity (?), it seems, as we are still 
handicapped by its inequitable specifications and prejudicial ad- 
vantages in favor of Great Britain — mirabile dictu ! 

That antiquated curiosity of American folly of 1815, our Treaty 
with Great Britain, faces our statesmen of to-day, as well as of the 
past, as an obstruction to equalization of commercial conditions, 
and particularly to the carrying trade between us and nations. 

It needs no proof to assure us of this fact. That most profound 
statesman, Daniel Webster, spoke emphatically, and recorded his 
opinion thereof, and of our humiliation, in ridicule of the errors 
that make up our present condition. 

Mr. "Webster said in an address at Baltimore, 1840 : 

"I do, gentlemen, entertain the strongest belief that the prhiciple of rec- 
iprocity acted upon by the Government is wrong from the beginning, and 
injurious to the great interests of the country." 

Mr. Webster was too diplomatic to express his candid judgment 
while arbitrating upon other conditions with Lord Ashburton ; but 
let those who claim Daniel Webster as an advocate of "Treaties" 
review his emphatic words here : 

"By every Reciprocity Treaty we agree to give to every nation witli 
whicli it is concluded a right to trade between us and other nations on 
the same terms as we trade ourselves — to give to the Hanse towns and 
the other States of the same class the right to fetch and carry between us 
and all nations of the world on the same terms as we do, and practically they 
call do it much tnore profitably." 

Here is the secret of England's success — she determined to 
wield a strong influence throughout the world b}^ carrying the trade 
of every nation, and this was accomplished through subsidizing her 
largest steamship companies — which is still continued. 

Mr. Webster further expounded the question thus : 

" "We ought to give to every nation the right of bringing her cargo here 
in her ships if she gives the lilie privilege ; but, bj^ the Eeciprocity Trea- 
ties, to give for the carrying of a nation like Bremen, which has but one 



14 SECTION I. 

port, all the ports along a coast of 1,500 miles, with 17,000,000 of people, 
when she has scarcely 200,000 of her own, pray what sort of a Reciprocity 
is this? It is very much like the horse and the cock, who were walking 
together. The cock thought to make a ' Beciprocal Treaty' with the horse 
— ' 1 will not tread on you if you will not tread on me.' " 

A finer caricature of " Reciprocity Treaties" could not be more 
dryly or poignantly portrayed. 

The great Webster was not alone in his contempt for such in- 
ternational law. The opinion of his successor as Secretary of State 
is here appropriate ; that brilliant and faithful statesman, whose 
career was suddenly ended by accidental death, Hon. Abel P. Up- 
shur, in his report Nov. 24, 1843, in presenting to President Tyler 
the condition of agreement creating tlie " Germanic Association or 
Customs Union," known as the " ZoU-Verein," referring to Mr. 
Webster's report of 1841 upon the same subject, and after point- 
ing out the advantages contemplated thereby, and referring to in- 
structions given to our Minister at Berlin, Mr. Wheaton, to estab- 
lish a commercial arrangement between our country and the states 
of that Customs Union, viz. : 

" To effect the long-cherished object of procuring the reduction of the 
present duty on our tobacco, secure the continued admission of our cotton 
free of all duties, and prevent the imposition of any higher duty on rice 
than that which is at present imposed." 

Mr. Upshur points out the advantages offered by this ZoU-Ve- 
rein and cites in contrast the exactions of England, France and 
Austria toward our trade relations and adds : 

" There is reason to apprehend that if the best advised measures be 
not promptly taken American commerce will soon be engrossed by the 
ships and seamen of Europe." 

Alas ! how prophetic the warning ; how true the prophecy to 
our present condition is the result of this so-called " Reciprocity 
Treaty of 1815 ! " 

Mr. Upshur continues : 

" There can he no doubt that the cause, of this great evil is to befoiind in 
the stipulations of our Treaties, which place the shipping of foreign countries 
on an equality with that of the United States in the indirect as well as the di- 
rect trade." 

It seems difficult to find any defence or excuse for our impolitic 
provisions, and deplorable disadvantage in shipping conditions. 
The Hon. Mr. Beck, of Kentucky, one of the ablest and most 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 15 

earnest advocates of free trade, at a dinner in New York city last 
3^ear, made the following remarkable admission of the disadvan- 
tage under which we labor in our commercial relations with foreign 
powers under our antiquated treaties. 

"I am, perhaps, unfortunate in lacking eitlier veneration or respect for 
antiquated laws. I deny the right — yes, the power — of the Federal Gov- 
ernment to make Treaties with foreign nations authorizing them to engage 
in our ocean-carrying trade upon precisely the same terms that our own 
citizens may." 

This frank admission applies more particularly, necessarily, to 
the treaty of 1815 with Great Britain than to any other nation, and 
is a most forcible and patriotic reflection upon our international 
commercial relations, although the final expression detracts from 
the good point taken. 

But this question is one of so much importance to-day that its 
discussion has been agitated recently and ably expounded by the 
Hon. Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, of the Senate, under the following 
resolution : 

" Besolved, That so-called reciprocity treaties, having no possible basis 
of reciprocity with nations of inferior population and wealth, involving 
the surrender of enoi'mously unequal sums of revenue, involving the sur- 
render of immensely larger volumes of home trade than are offered to us 
in return, and involving constitutional questions of the gravest character, 
are untimely, and should everywhere be regarded with disfavor." 

That these two distinguished senators, of antipodal ideas, poli- 
tic and economic, should at least agree in condemning the hypo- 
thetical benefits of our so-called Reciprocity Treaties, is certainly 
a suggestive thought. 

HOME MARKETS. 

The Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, of Massachusetts, the father of 
the United States tariflf of 1842, in his able report of that year, 
epitomized free trade and reciprocal treaties. Mr. Saltonstall 
pleaded that — 

"A departure from the policy under which duties on imports have been 
so arranged as to encourage domestic industry, it is feared, would be most 
disastrous. Foreign nations would flood this country with their produc- 
tions and destroy our manufactures by depriving them of the home market. 
The operation of it would be like that of our reciprocal treaties, as they are 
called, under which we have lost a great part of the carrying trade of our 
own produce." 



16 SECTION I. 

This evil has so long been a subject of complaint that it has fre- 
quently been recommended that an " auction duty" would check 
the excessive shipment to our ports of refuse stock of foreign goods 
sold here at any price and proceeds remitted in specie to the great 
injury of our business community. 

Mr. McLane, Secretary of the Treasury, sent a draught of a bill 
to the House for this purpose in 1832. 

The economy of a home market to which Mr. Saltonstall refers 
has been discussed in the preceding letter of this series, and its 
connection with this letter in regular order is here emphasized ; 
Mr. Saltonstall speaks forcibly, further, on page 20 of his same Re- 
port, as follows : 

«' Thus, it is that in sixteen countries of Europe, in which, if anything 
like reciprocity of terms were observed, over/owr hundred thousand hogs- 
heads of American tobacco, worth, before shipment, about thirty millions of 
dollars, would probably be consumed, the enormous burdens imposed upon 
the article by the Governments of those countries limit the introduction 
of it to less than ninety thousand hogsheads; and upon the amount so in- 
troduced into their consumption, costing in the United States less than 
seven millions of dollars, a revenue is charged and exacted in Europe 
amounting annually to over thirty-five millions of dollars. 

" Without advening to any other articles, these instances have been deemed 
so striking as to call for some notice in our legislation, in the hope that 
foreign Governments may be thereby induced to reflect upon the propriety 
of some change in the policy which is so manifestly destitute of reciproc- 
ity ! " 

Why was Mr, Saltonstall compelled to make these reflections 
upon our reciprocity treaties, but because the free trade of com- 
mercial intercourse guaranteed was not equitable? 

COASTWISE AND FOREIGN SHIPPING. 

In coastwise and inland shipping the United States excels every 
nation of the world, because of the protectorate in wise naviga- 
tion laws. 

In foreign shipping the United States is the most humiliated in 
the world, because of our neglect to study scientifically the causes 
and results, a priori wot prima facie, of this great economic. 

Canada has shown far more scientific study, or certainly more 
practical application, than we have in this respect, and the best ev- 
idence is that she is making such rapid and sad havoc upon our 
transcontinental trade that it will not be long before the whole bulk 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 17 

of foreign and even a great portion of our domestic freight and 
passenger traffic will be gobbled up to pass via the Canadian Pa- 
cific railroad and steamship line westward to Asia and eastward 
to Europe. 

On both sides now, on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, we are 
flanked by heavily subsidized steamship companies ; subsidized by 
the Canadian government to nearly the amount of a million dol- 
lars, as well as by millions of subsidy paid by England and more 
by other foreign nations. 

This is denied by the agents of the British shipping interests, 
who are supported as residents in the United States to fascinate 
with soft sophistry our general public, in ayi educative way, to make 
our credulous believe the idea that the government of Great Britain 
can do our carrying trade cheaper for us and only pay for carrying 
the foreign mails. 

This is deceptive and absolutely untrue, and will, doubtless, be 
exposed before the next Congress. 

America consolidated by railroad continuation from Alaska 
TO Magellan. 

From Behring Strait to Magellan we can prospectively see a con- 
tinued and direct railroad communication between the three Amer- 
icas, although none of us present to-day may really recognize that 
concentration of economic and sociologic conditions in our day ; 
but if the people of Canada and the several peoples of our sister 
republics of Spanish blood progress one-half in proportion to the 
United States we could see it in ten years. 

Surely, if Canada can appropriate $215,000,000 for the Cana- 
dian Pacific Railroad, and go ahead with it as she has, it is by no 
means a chimerical project to contemplate a longitudinal railroad 
from the extreme north to the extreme south of our American con- 
tinent. 

But it is to the Canadian Pacific Railroad that I would call your 
attention. 

This railroad, it is feared by many of our people, will rob the 
United States not only of her transcontinental trade, but also of 
our little ocean commerce that is left. So it will, if our statesmen 
lie supinely on their backs and see our commerce, our shipping 
and our railroad traffic taken from us without putting forth the same 
3 



18 SECTION I. 

scientific and economic effort in legislative skill and foresiglit to 
protect such interests. 

But the Congress of the United States will act. It cannot do 
otherwise. There is the Canadian Pacific railroad cutting the state 
of Maine in half. 

Already' are Canadian railroads, as well as Canadian shipping, 
protected and encouraged, while our own interests are neglected. 
How long can this continue? The whole territory of America, 
north of the forty-fifth parallel of latitude would pass under the 
rule of the Dominion of Canada if the present aggressions upon us 
were to continue. 

But we owe a duty to ourselves as well as faithful friendship to 
you, our neighbors. 

Tlie railroad condition of the Avorld is as follows : 

America 181,000 miles. 

Europe 130,000 " 

Asia ^ . 17,000 " 

Australia, about 9,000 " 

Africa 5,000 " 

Thus it will be seen that America leads the world in railroad en- 
terprise. Of this the United States has 150,000 miles ; Canada, 
12,000 miles. Here is a contrast in enterprise as in population. 

There is so much in this, as especially in shipping conditions that 
require scientific study, that I greatly regret that in this address it 
is necessary to confine argument to but a brief review. 

CONSULS AND DIPLOMATISTS. 

"Commerce is king," wrote Carlyle ; but he should have added, 
the Consul is premier in commerce. Mightier is he who makes the 
king than he who wears the crown. 

The Consul has the power to guide trade and develop an immense 
economic work for his countrymen. 

The Diplomatist has the greater influence in sociologic associa- 
tions. He passes, as it is said, "the snuff-box with distinguished 
consideration," and manifests the ethics of intercourse, diplomati- 
cally, of course, between two peoples of antipodal tastes and habits, 
while the consul studies the means of aggrandizing all the com- 
merce (or wealth) of the nation to which he is accredited in the 
most scientific manner possible. 

In this science, as in foreign shipping protection, England has 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 19 

outscienced all other scientists of the world, and the people of 
Canada have displa3fed similar talent. 

This is another of the few superiorities that I ana willing to yield 
in acknowledgment to our disadvantage ; but it is one of the bene- 
fits that I trust we of the United States may be inspired to imitate 
by the approaching unification with the people once known as Can- 
adians, as we were once known as Colonists. 

The Consul is a power — where he is needed ; but there exists at 
present a line of pickets along our dividing boi^ndary called con- 
suls doing a duty which is really the most preposterous farce that 
ever was known, except for nominal commercial relations and the 
fees of the post. 

Who that has tried to study the commerce between the United 
States and Canada has not found that the trade passed secretly 
between the posts of custom-houses is as great as that passed legit- 
imately? Lumber, clothing, animals, eggs, etc., are passed in and 
machines, implements, etc., are passed out ad libitum without duty 
or equitable exchange. 

Of what value are the oflBcial statistics between our two govern- 
ments under such circumstances? 

OUR SOCIOLOGIC RELATIONS. 

Social economy is a dependent condition — dependent upon the 
chance to regulate our national and personal welfare of the domes- 
tic family, to sustain existence, to accumulate comforts, and to 
hoard up all excess of income not needed for absolute immediate 
subsistence, that it may be reserved for contingent reverses or for 
indulgence of luxury. 

In the economic phase of this subject, however, there must be a 
distinct line drawn between the expenses for necessaries and saving 
for luxury. 

The man who, even by chance, inheritance, or hard industry, 
possesses wealth and trusts the loan of that wealth to his neigh- 
bors on faith without collateral security, hoping and expecting his 
prosperity to increase according to his happy ideas, would soon 
find himself the beggar of charity instead of the ruler of millions 
in personal wealth. 

Take from social economy that reliance upon the security of col- 
laterals and the healthy and sure regulation of justice through law 
prescribed and ordained b}' the science of political economy, and 
you rob the domestic circle of that incentive to industry and thrift 



20 SECTION I. 

which is animated and guaranteed by the regulation of commerce, 
whether of small or great degree, under enactment of a politico- 
economic body of the people, and thereby also rob both rich and 
poor of prosperit}' and happiness. 

In an interesting lecture before the Anthropological Society at 
the Columbian University, at Washington, some months since, 
Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, of England, endeavored very seri- 
ously to teach us that all men could and should live as angels on 
trust, faith, hope and charity, and this beautiful theoretical creed 
is earnestly urged by many under the term of free trade. This 
would be revolution indeed. 

Gladly might we accept such tenets as principles of political or 
social economy in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs were we 
assured that our neighbors would be as perfect angels as we could 
easily imagine ourselves to be. 

But we are not. Neither man nor woman has yet arrived at that 
degree of perfection, even with all our progressiveness, in the 
United States, and certainly not in England, where free trade has 
been a national doctrine for forty years. 

Professor Wallace was beautiful in his theoretical precepts and 
teachings, but we do not, unfortunately, partake of Divine nature 
or of those conditions of life essential to free trade relations and 
interchanges which are claimed peculiar to the isolated isles of 
Britain. 

No wise financier would lend money even upon collateral if a 
lawsuit was anticipated to be necessary to recover his principal, 
but would he be willing to trust on faith? 

What right in justice to his family? what sense of self-preserva- 
tion and maintenance of honor would he maintain? how long be- 
fore he would be ruined, were he to lend without security, or were 
our politico-economic laws compulsory to lend on faith, or, worse, 
to make a general division of the hard earnings of a lifetime? 

It would be robbery to the poor man's thrift ; it would be death 
to industry. 

Wlien the poor man can borrow from the rich without collateral, 
then that blessed theory of free trade will prevail — but not till 
then. 

"Charity covereth a multitude of sins," but withal not the sin of 
debt! 

Even Christianity is a failure in creating charity for the indebt- 
edness of one dime. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 21 

A debt will be remembered by the creditor forever, though per- 
haps forgotten by the debtor. 

This is not a national characteristic ; it is an individuality, 
whether of Jew or Gentile. It was a very ungracious and incor- 
rect reflection in Shakespeare to attempt to cast ignominy in this 
respect upon the Jewish people through the character of Shylock. 
The Hebrew people are as charitable as our own. 

"We must deal with ourselves as we are, not as what we should 
like to be. 

As well might we guide our conditions by the delicate theory of 
Platonic love or govern ourselves according to the idealistic prin- 
ciples of Zenophon or Aristotle or Zeno, even more beautiful in 
principle, and as their philosophj^ teaches man to become, as to be 
governed to-day by the tenets of those later theorists, Adam Smith, 
Eicado, Say and Bastiat, who wrote of political and social economy 
according to the conditions in their age, but which were preexist- 
ent to steam and mechanical development. 

RACE AND RELIGION. 

Nowhere in the world is a more conspicuous hatred manifested 
between factions of one people under one government on account of 
race and religion than is witnessed to-day in Canada. French, 
English, Irish, and purely Canadian races each retain and maintain 
their separate and distinctive identity. 

Not even in Great Britain were the several races and religious 
divisions of England, Scotland and Ireland more antipodal in their 
tastes and habits or bitter in their hatreds in olden times than are 
the French and the British colonists — the Roman and the Anglican 
churches — of the Dominion to-day. 

Mr. Beaugrand is as positive in his expressed written views of 
this fact as Premier Mercier is earnest in his eloquent avalanche of 
oratorical emphasis. 

Can any nation prosper as a people under such prevailing feel- 
ing? 

It is in fact an ill-assorted combination of two peoples under a 
cold autocratic government, without any softening provisions to 
ameliorate racial prejudices or animate religious ties. 

Canada will disintegrate herself upon her racial and religious 
conditions, for we see in our neighboring friends at present the anom- 
aly of a predominating race governed under an uncongenial au- 
thority. 



22 SECTION I. 

In the United States this antipathy cannot exist, as our form of 
government destroys such feeling of rivahy, because the natural 
passions of jealousy, dislike, or ambition have nothing to feed upon. 

In exemplification of this as a fact we see that many of these 
very two peoples have migrated into several of our States and are 
dwelling in peace and prosperity, and Mr. Beaugrand has very 
truly said that in annexation to the United States — 

"The French Canadians have no fear that they would lose any of their 
present privileges by coming into the Union. 'Whether as a province of 
independent Canada or as a State of the American Union, we should re- 
tain our right to local self-government, and I do not know of any sensible 
man among our people who desires anything more than that." 

Such is the beauty of our Government in contradistinction to that 
of a monarchial form. 

No "orange" nor the "green," nor yellow nor the red, can inter- 
rupt our solid blue by racial or religious feuds, but the Stars and 
Stripes alone can rule as the banner of our republican identity and 
as the symbol of protection in the development of civilization and 
elevation of mankind. 

IMMIGRATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 

Who and what are we, and who are you? is an important re- 
flection. 

It would be ridiculous for the people of Canada or the people of 
the United States to be termed Puritans of England, or Anglo-Sax- 
ons, or Celts, or of the Latin race, nor have we an identity with 
the aborigines of this Continent. 

We are Americans ! 

In this fourth century of America's discovery and name, it is an 
interesting as well as scientific study to ascertain our component 
parts and learn in what proportions we are, as a people, conspicu- 
ously developed. 

When we compare the United States with Canada, in blessings that 
have accrued to us from wise foresight in provision, in the incep- 
tion of our Government, "for the encouragement and protection of 
our industries," we should ponder upon the vast politico-economic 
advantages that have accrued to enrich our condition, extend and 
strengthen our influence, elevate our dignity, enlarge our liberality, 
and to command the respect of the world, and make our country the 
haven of refuge for industrious humanity. 

The concentration of ingenious brain, the multiplication of thou- 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 23 

sands of dollars per immigrant in wealth of labor, the purest and 
richest virtues in industry and thrift have by immigration been 
blended into our conditions. 

But in our "free land" and under "free institutions" does the im- 
migrant expect to find our home doors open or unprotected, our 
offices and factories unrestricted from intrusion, or as "free" to the 
customer as to the owner? 

The United States is the refuge for the honest prince of industry 
from every part of the world, and he emigrates thither to better his 
condition, to elevate his standing, and to give to this posterity 
the pride and birthright of manhood. He is re-created from the 
chrysalis of social nonentity into a development under protection 
in his new life of earnest striving and saA'ing through industry. 
Subjugation by low wages and humiliation in dress and food, as was 
the case in his foreign home, would be to rob him of pride and our- 
selves of economic results. 

The international representation and cosmopolitan character of 
our people through the influence of these wonderful features of 
political economy is seen by the following exhibits : 

1. Of the sanguinary ties blending us together as a people ; and 

2. Of the economic power thereby contributed to our wealth 
annually. 

The official figures of the last census gave as 

The total number having Irish fathers 4,529,523 

" " German fathers .... 4,883,842 

" " British fathers .... 2,039,808 

" " Scandinavian fathers . . . 635,405 

" " British-American fathers . . 939,247 

" " fathers of other nationalities . 1,321,485 

" " native fathers and foreign mothers 573,434 

" " /oreifiTM residents of both parents native 33,252 

TotaU 14,955,996 



The total numher having Irish mothers .... 4,448,421 

" " German mothers .... 4,557,629 

" " British mothers .... 1,790,200 

«' «' Scandinavian mothers . , . 631,309 

" " British-American mothers . . 931,408 

*' " mothers of other nationalities . 1,226,113 

lit may be remembered that our present industrial strength is only 17,000,000, and 
at previous census only 1^,000,000. 



24 SECTION I. 

The total number having native mothers and foreign fathers l,337,fi64 
" " foreign residents of both parents native 33,252 

Total» 14,955,996 



Thus the largest foreign element intermingled with us is the 
German, the second is Irish ; these constitute nearly 70 per cent 
of the whole. 

The recent remarkable increase of emigration from Germany to 
this country has excited that great Political Economist, Chancellor 
Bismarck, and it is not surprising that he seeks to guard his coun- 
try from the aggrandizement of American industries by an increased 
tariff upon American meats, by prohibition, and, worse than all, 
from depopulation and denationality through American absorption 
by interdiction to his people of migratory privileges. 

The official report of a Consul in Germany says : 

"This unprecedented exodus is engaging the serious attention of the 
German economists, and especially that of Imperial Chancellor Bismarcli. 
The former have been calculating the working value of the average emi- 
grant, and state that the services of every laboring man leaving the coun- 
try may be valued at $1,000; there can be but little doubt that every 
emigi'ant is worth that yearly amount to the United States. Computing 
the wealth the United States acquire by the influx of population on this 
basis, and estimating the number of emigrants to the United States during 
the year 1881, as having reached 600,000, the country would have gained 
in that period $600,000,000." 

This reported loss of wealth to Germany is so reliable that it 
appears the increase of our industrial wealth from immigration has 
been about $800,000,000 yearly, of recent years. 

To estimate carefully as to the money actually brought into our 
country per immigrant, we must first take the average number of 
adults and find the amount of specie added by this yearly increase 
of population. 

Another German Consul writes on this point, viz. : 

"That the following are the figures given me by the police authorities 
of this port: adults, 9,223 ; children under twelve years, 2,208; infants 
under one year, 519; total, 11,960." 

This is a just proportion ; or take even less, say, 75 per cent 
only as adults, we have last year, adults . . . 590,000 
at a minimum amount per capita of ... $100 

adding to our country a specie value of . . $59,000,000 

lit may be remembered that our present industrial strength is only 17,000,000, and 
at previous census only 12,000,000. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 25 

Calculating this immigration as a settled part of our people, at 
the usual average of five per family, and with the minimum family 
expenses per month $50, and $600 per year, we add at this rate 
to our wealth yearly by increased circulation of money, about 
$500,000,000. 

The intrinsic motive power for this extraordinary emigration is 
found in the simple fact that there is an instinctive yearning in. 
man to better his condition and raise his family to the highest de- 
gree of education and refinement, and the emigrant sees in the 
United States the fairest basis of labor and most equitable stand- 
ard of Christian liberty and political economy. 

Thus we see a most powerful Influence and benefit to onr Indus- 
try, and a most Important point In our political economy through 
immigration. 

In ti'ansformation of people our extreme northern states, Maine, 
Vermont and New Hampshire, in the upper part thereof, there lias 
been for the last ten 5^ears a great development, viz., the exodus 
westward of many citizens of those states and the migration of 
French Canadians to fill the void. 

I? But this Is Canadlanizlng New England, and, although it has 
long been In my mind, I prefer to quote from an able article of 
Mr. A. L. Bartlett, In the Forum of August, which covers the 
point completely : 

"How rapidly the French Canadian element in New England, the great 
rival there of the Irish in numerical, strength, and zealous tidelity to the 
Roman Catholic Church, has increased, is shown by a few statistics from 
the manufacturing cities. In the city of Lewiston, Me., the children of 
Canadian parentage almost equal those of American and of Irish par- 
entage comljined. In Manchester, N. H., out of a population of 40,000, 
12,000 are of this nationality. In Nashua, out of a population of 17,500, 
5,500 are of this nationality, a gain of fully one-half in live years. In 
Lowell, Mass., they constitute one-third of the population. In Holyok-j 
the children of Canadian parentage are to those of American parentage 
as five to two. In Fall River, in 1859, there was one French Canadian 
family ; in 1874 this class had increased to 6,000 souls ; in the next decade 
that number was more than doubled; and to-day they number there full 
20,000. In Woonsocket, R. I., they constitute two-flfths of the population. 

In the public schools of Manchester, out of 3,670 pupils enrolled, 1,437 
were the children of aliens— French, German, Swedish, English, Scotch, 
Nova Scotian, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, and Russian. In Lewiston, 
Me., out of 6,781 minors, only 1,859 were of American parentage, the na- 
tionalities of the others being as diverse as those mentioned above. In 
Holyoke, Mass., out of G,297, only 843 were of American parentage. In 
4 



26 SECTION I. 

Woonsocket, R. I., less than half the children of school age, as given by 
the school census, are enrolled in the public schools, and the school report 
of 1888 says : 

"The influx of French Canadians in every year is quite large, and it has 
become a serious question how they can best be assimilated. The educa- 
tion of the masses is with us a fundamental principle. . . . Schools 
are established, instruction provided that tlie children of all alil^e may be- 
come useful and patriotic citizens. But do we realize that there are hun- 
dreds of children going to school here whose instruction has no more to 
do toward making them good American citizens than does the instruction 
of Canadian children?" 

It is our form of government which influences good citizenship, 
the incentive of pride to be elevated. 

This is a matter of as lioppy satisfaction, as it is true, and proves 
the unifying power of our grand government. In connection here- 
with I especially point to comments upon education on another 
page. 

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 

Speech is the most powerful agent in the world ; the most as- 
similating element in life ; the most comforting to all sensibility. 

It is a happy solace to think of our grand Anglo-Caiholic Creed 
"I believe in the H0I3' Communion of Saints ;" but with the living 
there can be no communion of tliought or mutual interest of pur- 
pose without the interchange of soul in one language. 

"Two souls with but one single thought, 
Two hearts that beat as one," 

can onl}' be realized when the lips speak one tongue. 

This is why we of the United States, although so cosmopolitan, 
are so assimilated and unified ; because in eveiy state one language 
is recognized in all educational and industrious pursuits. 

The reason why Canadians are not unified in themselves is be- 
cause of the want of this influence. 

There is no greater mistake of the Roman Catholic branch of the 
church than the service in the Latin tongue. Were this error cor- 
rected the natural sympathy of that solemn form of worship would 
be far more impressive upon the mind of the listener and far more 
powerful in winning American converts to that faith. 

Let us reflect that the English language is now general in every 
2xirt of the globe. Tliis cannot be said of an^^ other language un- 
der the sun. Think of it ! 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 27 

In America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceanica the 
English language is heard exte-nsively, if not by a vast mnjority. 

The idea of VolapiJk becoming &. universal language is absurd in 
the extreme. 

A language cannot be issued by one man, it must grow naturally 
with generations. 

Who could have made the English language, although the great 
Johnston, the reflective Webster, and the critical Worcester, and 
many others have from time to time improved it? 

Look at a small table of figures to see at a glance the relative 
condition of the principal languages to-day: 

English, by about .... 150,000,000 tongues 
German, " " .... 70,000,000 " 

French, " " .... 50,000,000 " 
Spanish, " " . . . . . 40,000,000 
Russian, " " (purely) . . . 32,000,000 " 
Italian, " " . . ' . . . 30,000,000 " 

Portuguese, " " 8,000,000 " 

The Londo7i Times recently very pertinently^ remarked : 

"The commerce of the world cannot go on without English. Let tlie 
traveler stop where he chooses, he will find the Greek, the Jew, and the 
Scotchman carrying on business. They transact it, however, in Englisli and 
through an English firm or an American one. SmaUer branches of trade 
fall to the Erenchmaa, the German, and the Italian — the Portuguese, as a 
rule, occupies himself with the leavings of the rest — but each and all have 
acquired for practical mercantile reasons a sufficiency of Englisli to make 
himself understood." 

To England unquestionably belongs the credit of being the great 
dissemifiator of the English language by the control of the greater 
part of the world's shipping, and it is to be hoped that we Amer- 
icans will imitate and help her in this great work. 

GENERATION AND POPULATION OF THE CONTINENT. 

We have looked into the natural condition of our two countries. 
We must follow the growth of each to know what is likely to de- 
velop still further. 

It is easy to see our preponderosity in population, but which of 
us has the smartest brain remains to be seen. 

The greater generally absorbs the less, but there can be no uni- 
fication by force or numbers or power. 

England's experience with poor old Ireland shows clearly to the 



28 SECTION I. 

world that although there may be a coerced union there is not uni- 
fication. 

But look at the official figures which show the proportions of both 
country and people by the following tabulation : 

Let us take the figures in round numbers of conditions just 
here. 

Area. Population. Density. 

The United States' . . . 3,600,000 sq. miles 65,000,000 18. 
The Canadian States . . . 3,500,000 " " 5,000,000 1.42 

And also let us estimate ourselves with Great Britain thrown in 
with Canada. 

Area. Population. 

The Canadian States, 3,500,000 sq. miles 5,000,000 

Great Britain, 121,000 " " 36,000,000 



Canada and Great Britain, .... 3,621,000 sq. miles 41,000,000 
The United States, 3,600,000 " " 65.000,000 

And what are we coming to? Can Canada vie with us in ad- 
vancement? Certainly not without us, for see the proportionate 
growth of the two peoples in the past. And what will it be in the 
future? It is estimated that the rates of increase of population by 
births over deaths is at present two per cent. Taking into calcu- 
lation our yearly increase of population from immigration and our 
past decadal census, we find it to be but a reasonable estimate to 
predict for the United States — without Canada— in the year — 
1900 a population of 85,000,000, 
2000 a population (at least) 500,000,000. 

This is not speculative, but as likely as it is that the world will 
continue " to bring forth its fruit," and that mankind continues to 
produce issue. 

What our moral conditions will be depends upon our continued 
development of good sense and refinement. 

Wliere shall we put this overflowing population except to spread 
them over the vast and vacant fields of Canada. 

EDUCATION. 

The chief bulwark of industry, identity and mutual interest in 
the United States is our public (free) school system ; but there is 
mucli improvement yet to be made. Political economy and social 
science should be more generally taught for the higher elevation of 

I Including Alaska, wJjiclj has proved to possess great wealth. 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 29 

national and local administration and for the better amelioration 
of domesticity among our people. 

Not only is the education of the masses an essential element to 
the prosperity of a people, but that education must be in our own 
country. 

There is nothing more conducive to unfit the youth for nearly all 
the paths of American industry than a cultivation of foreign taste 
and notions in children than a foreign education. Upon this im- 
portant point I wish to cite the opinion of General Washington, 
who wrote : 

" It has always beeu a source of serious regret with me to see the youth 
of these United States sent to foreign countries for the purpose of educa- 
tion, often before their minds were formed or they had imbibed any ade- 
quate ideas of the happiness of their own, contracting too frequently not 
only habits of dissipation and extravagance, but pi-inciples unfriendly to 
republican government." 

The standard of education in the United States to-day is the best 
and highest in the world. 

U. S. Consul Potter, at Crefield, writes to the Department of 
State, in regard to the unhappy influences upon the American youth 
studying abroad, especially in Gei'man}^, that — 

" to such influences none are more sensitive than the nervously organized 
young American," 

who is sowing seeds for the future — either for usefulness or ex- 
travagance. 

Consul Potter very truthfully and forcibly adds that " a cultured 
American who has mastered any single subject of study in Amer- 
ica would not (at this date) find much in the same line of study to 
learn in Europe." 

CONSANGUINITY AND MARRIAGE. 

There is an influence developing more steadily and progressively 
which will inevitably prove a much stronger British investment in 
the United States than any syndicate of the many being formed. 

These numerous matrimonial syndicates are investments, how- 
ever, that will eventually undermine the British government and 
make Canada and the United States one at heart, one in family 
and one in home. 

It strikes me that these are the wisest investments made by our 
English cousins ; for, though it seems so far to be the case that 



30 SECTION I. 

Englishmen get the money and our American girls only get the 
imaginary crowns or titles, the Englishm'en, notwithstanding, ob- 
tain most irrepressible rulers, who will wield so developing an in- 
fluence over them, though they never wore a crown or title before, 
but who are so thoroughlj^ indoctrinated with Republican princi- 
ples and associations that it must surely be ingrafted in their pos- 
terity — their children and childrens' children must inherit the spir- 
it of a mother. 

POLICY OF ECONOMY THAT CREATES MONOPOLY. 

Monopoly is a word of such general meaning, and applied as a 
term, of such antipodal significance, that when used to indicate 
economic conditions its sense ma}^ or may not be complimentary. 
If monopoly is used to indicate advantages or preferences in eco- 
nomic legislation, and if such legislation favors one branch of in- 
dustry or class of people to the injury of the other, that monopoly'' 
should be wiped out immediately and entirely ; and if such were 
applicable to protective tariff enactments we should and would ab- 
hor and denounce the injustice vvith earnestness. But wherein is 
an industrial protective policy a monopoly — when the farmer gets 
protection on the value of his farm, his horse, or his product? 

Then it took a large quantity of his product to buy an English 
carriage, a clock, or even a plow ; it took the value of his horse 
to buy any small article of machinery, and especially if it was of 
foreign manufacture. 

Now he pays only from five to ten dollars for a plow, and yet 
his horse has about the same steady value. Now, one-fourth of 
that part of the produce he paid for any implement then will be 
ample in value of exchange. Such results may be called monop- 
oly of protection, but such monopoly has not hurt the farmer, the 
merchant, nor the country. 

How purely selfish it is, then, in the Cobden Club writers, and 
how inconsistent in American statesmen, to appeal to American 
farmers — as their friends — to believe the doctrines adverse to the 
farmers' interest ! 

There is not a branch of industry, mental or physical, that has 
not been simplified, improved and cheapened ; there is not an ar- 
ticle of home or foreign manufacture (of iron or any other mate- 
rial), of mechanism or ingenuities, essential to labor and to our 
wants in trade or household comforts, that have not been made 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 31 

cheaper in price ; and where is the man who desires to giA^e np the 
advancement, the independence, the refinement, tlie education, the 
thrift and all the blessings brouglit about by this so-called monop- 
oly. 

That monopoly can only exist under free trade, and that/ree 
trade can only exist under the protection of monopol}' is unques- 
tionably clear, in the fact tliat it was only the monopoly of iron 
that developed British manufacture, the monopoly (throughout the 
world) of her many and developed manufactures that induced and 
enabled her statesmen to open British ports as the sans-souci marts 
of inequitable trade. 

If industries or trade require protection, it is against that mo- 
nopoly ; hence, the absurdity of the weaker condition monopolizing 
the greater. It is to destroy monopoly that protection is neces- 
sary ; it is as necessary to discriminate in the policy of protection 
as it is discreet to protect only where necessary. 

Protection is not for the benefit of monopolists at home ; it is to 
defend us from monopoly from abroad — from foreign monopolists 
of capital and of pauper labor, from the monopoly of the world's 
foreign carrying trade, from monopoly of foreign banking ex- 
change and from a foreign controlling influence over our commerce 
through commercial letters of credit from the monopolizing condi- 
tions of the Lloyds Insurance, which alone is a triumvirate of in- 
surance, shipping and oflficial protection thereto through the British 
consular service. 

Monopol3Ms only powerful where conditions are left iinregidated, 
where the greater absorb the lesser, and where the poor are most 
subject to the rich and influential. 

But as a feature of political economy in import duty of our coun- 
try the truth is recorded in the pages of official history of our 
country's past. 

The power of the foreign " Importer's Monopoly" is exhibited 
in the investigation of the working of the boasted tariff of 1846. 
The importer of the United States is peculiarly of a duplicate 
character in his relation to the politico-economic conditions of our 
country. 

It may not be generally known, but of this class of our com- 
munity seventy-five per cent are foreign, representing foreign cap- 
ital and foreign industry ; twenty-five per cent, only, being the 
ratio of Americans possessed of home capital, of home ties and 



32 SECTION I. 

home interests, nationally or individually, in the importing trade 
of our country. 

It is the former who control a monopoly of our foreign trade, 
and who with watchful eye antagonize every clause in legislative 
acts that tend to interrupt that status that they have steadily de- 
veloped, and the spirit of monopoly evinced since the colonial tax- 
ations for foreign staples that drove our fathers to independence 
in person and protection in industry. 

It is not frofti the latter class of importers that the cry comes 
for free trade as an economic principle, but their cry is, to be saved 
from the " undervaluations," the " impure grades," and the "tricks 
of the trade " that have been made, and will always be made, un- 
der an approach to free conditions or deceptive ad valorem rates 
of custom duties. So ruinous a result from such a system can only 
be understood from the evidence of those who have suffered, but 
the importance thereof justifies the citation in corroboration of fact 
in contradistinction from fallacy or theory. 

So far from the industry of manufacture being a monopoly under 
an economic policy of impost duty, it is conspicuously incorrect to 
every clear and impartial mind, after careful study of the causes 
and results in our condition. 

On the contrary, the great number and variety of classes who 
are benefited by such protective system are as fourteen is to four ; 
proportionate to the census retui'n of those who in their industrial 
occupations have the great benefits of such economic safeguard 
without the fear of financial risk or apprehension. 

A home demand, from a large and steadily increasing custom at 
our own doors, is far more secure than the patronage of rival for- 
eign nations, whose purchases from us depend upon the contingen- 
cies of the production or scarcity of other parts of the world and 
the prevailing relations of peace or warfare between nations. 

Thei'e are many causes influencing a monopoly and depression 
of commercial patronage from foreign nations that are necessarily 
prejudicial in trade and conducive to a sudden excess in demand 
and shortness in supply, and also to as sudden a reverse. 

Monopol)^ then, lies in foreign banking exchange, in foreign in- 
surance, and in foreign shipping, which secures to foreign imports 
an undermining influence upon our home industry that tends to 
consume our strength in commercial relations, notwithstanding our 
resources and home enterprise. Such monopoly, if allowed to de- 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 33 

velop, and surely if advanced by abolition of onr protecting tariff, 
will result as injudiciously and ruinously to our people as such 
causes and conditions have ruined other nations in the past. 

CONCLUSION. 

An argument is too apt to present individual ideas or prefer- 
ences ; too liable to be based upon hypotheses or sophisms ; too 
probable to be drawn in conclusion omitting some premise of rea- 
son or condition, a realism not sophism, that might materially al- 
ter the deduction made. 

It is easy to accept an argument provided the sentiments ex- 
pressed meet the sympathy of the listener or reader, but it is hard 
to make men agree whose immediate interests do not appear to 
them sufficient to give reflection to questions considered or whose 
ideas are of a diametrical tendency, although we all know many in- 
stances where parties have, after careful study or from some exper- 
ience felt, learned the mistake they had made in judgment by find- 
ing conditions existing that had not before been apparent to them, 
because either they had been blinded by prejudice or thoughtless 
of the subject. 

This is true even among students of economic science and sta- 
tisticians in their deductions from official data, and the greatest care 
and frankness should be cultivated in verification of all those data 
and of historic records to guard against error and to perfect a sci- 
entific research for a correct conclusion. 

An illustration of disagreement to be regretted, especially among 
economists, as, for instance, Condillac absurdly claimed as a prin- 
ciple of economy that there was an increase of value in the exchange 
of commodities, because, as he wrote — 

" If men always exchanged equal value for equal value there would be 
no profit to be made by traders." 

This is a sophism, and exposed clearly by Jean Baptiste Say, 
who answers — 

"Since a sale is nothing but an act of barter, wherein one kind of goods, 
silver, for example, is received in lieu of another kind of goods, the loss 
which either of the parties dealing should sustain on one article would be 
equivalent to the profit he would make on tlie other, and there would be 
to the community no production whatever." 

And plainly explodes such fallacy when he says : 
5 



34 SECTION I. 

" The seller does not play the rogue nor the buyer the fool, and Condillac 
had no ground for his position." 

Sismondi answers the sophism forcibly, as follows : 

" The trader places himself between the producer and the consumer to ben- 
efit them both at once, making his charge for that benefit upon both." 

Thus we see that sometimes " even doctors disagree !" 

It is far from my wish or thought that this brief analysis of the 
existing conditions and probable eventualities of our two peoples be 
taken in an autocratic spirit. 

Not as Monarchists but as Republicans, and with the progress- 
iveness naturally peculiar, and judging of the future by the past, 
with careful study and consideration, it seems to us that there is 
no future for Canada but in union with the United States, which is 
to-day first in industry, first in educational system, and first in 
wealth among the nations of the world. 

We cannot go to you, but invite you — when you feel that you 
cannot help it — to come to us ; and it seems beyond theory and 
more than a " glittering generality" to expect it soon for 

"No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, but the whole boundless 
Continent is (or will eventually be) ours." 



APPENDIX. 

The following interesting and impovtant comparison of the world's gold and silver 
product from the '' VVashington Press" of Aug. 27, was presented in the address. 
GOLD AND SILVER VALUES.— AMERICA COMPARED WITH THE WORLD. 



GOLD. 



SILVER. 



GOLD & SILVER. 



Germany, 

Austro- Hungary, 

Europe, 

Bussia, 

Africa 

Australia, 

Other countries,. 



$11,000,000 
242,000,000 
2,000,000 
793,000,000 
376,000,000 
1,246,000,000 
126,000,000 



$28:^,000,000 

293,000,000 

330,000,000 

90,000,000 

1,009,000 

8,000,000 

81,000,000 



$291,000,000 
535,000,000 
332,000,000 
883,000,000 
337,000,000 

1,254,000,000 
207,000,000 



Total,. 



$2,793,000,000 $1,086,000,000 $3,882,000,000 



SOUTH AMERICA. 



SILVER. GOLD & SILVER. 



Gi'anada, 

Peru, 

Bolivia, 

Chili, 

Braz il, 

All other So. Anier. countries,. 



$623,000,000 
82,000,000 
145,000,000 
134,000,000 
522,000,000 
40,000,000 



$ ,000,000 

1,091,000.000 

1,517,000,000 

186,000,000 

12,000,000 



$623,000,000 

1,173,000,000 

1,662,000,000 

523,000,000 

32,000,000 



Total, $1,546,000,000 



$2,806,000,000 



$4,352,000,000 



NORTH AMERICA. 





GOLD. 


SILVER. 


GOLD & SILVER. 


United States 


$1,806,000,000 

143,000,000 

13,000,000 


$863,000,000 

2,995,000,000 

2,000,000 


$2,669,000,000 




3,138,000,000 




15,000,000 






Total North Americas, 


$1,962,000,000 
1,546,000,000 


$3,860,000,000 
2,806,000,000 


$5,822,000,000 
4,352,000,000 






$3,508,000,000 
2,796,000,000 


$6,666,000,000 
1,086,000,000 


$10,174,000,000 
3,882,000,000 


Total Europe, Asia and Africa,... 


Total World, 


$6,304,000,000 


$7,752,000,000 


$14,056,000,000 







Percentage of Gold, 
" " Silver, 

" " Gold and Silver, 

(35) 



in favor of America. 



NOTES. 

EXPRESSIONS OF THE PRESS. 

Among the maiij^ editorials which the foregoing address elicited 
were tlie following : 

The project of a Zollverein Mr. Hill considers to be impracti- 
cable. That maybe so. Canadians are indisposed to annexation 
— a matter concerning which our visitors should be under no de- 
lusion — and it is not very easy to see how an arrangement for a 
Zollverein could be devised which would not necessitate a more 
disagreeable form of political relation than even annexation itself, 
and consequently have a tendencj^ to promote annexation. — To- 
ronto Globe. 

Mr. Charles S. Hill, vice president of the section of economics 
and statistics, made quite a sensation by his opening speech on the 
" Relations of the Canadian States and the United States. He 
thought it remarkable that the former people should not unani- 
mouslj'^ desire annexation to such a progressive and enterprising 
people as ourselves. There can be but three Americas, — North, 
Central and South ; and eventually there will be but one people 
from the Atlantic to the Gulf, bound by inseparable ties of lan- 
guage and consanguinit}^ He denounced strongly the policy of 
free trade as long as Canada remained a part of the British empire 
and contrasted the bitter racial and religious antipathies existing 
under a cold monarchial sway with the obliteration of such rival- 
ries in a republic. And so he went on to prove conclusively that 
"there is no future for Canada but m union with the United States, 
which is to-day the first in industry, education and wealth among 
the nations of the world" — all of which is doubtless true enough, 
but of a nature to provoke sharp criticism from the Toronto 
press. — Scientific American. 

The importance of Mr. Hill's paper at this time is that in it is 
discussed the question of national as against commercial union. 
The one would make us one people with identical interests ; the 
other would make a " side door entrance," which " would be used 
exclusively for commercial intercourse with Great Britain, to the 
serious impairment of the trade of our Atlantic and Pacific sea- 
(3G) 



ADDRESS BY CHARLES S. HILL. 37 

port cities" . . . The position taken by Mr. Hill was that " joined 
by natural conditions of creation, by ties of consanguinity and lan- 
guage, by bans of matrimony and posterity, these two peoples, of 
the Canadian States and the United States, must eventually be one 
and inseparable — inevitably." 

This postulate was followed by a lengthy argument, in which wis- 
dom, wit, economic and historical facts were deftly combined to 
lead up to the conclusion that " there is no future for Canada but 
in union with the United States, which is to-day first in industry, 
first in educational system and first in wealth among the nations of 
the world." — Manufachirers' Record. 

CAN WE GET THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF IT? 

The economic relations of this continent — that is a subject in- 
teresting and important enough to be worth}' of elaborate discus- 
sion, we should say. Are we likely soon to be favored with the 
scientific viewof it, or something thereto approaching, we wonder? 
The present gathering of scientific men in Toronto ma}' suggest 
that such a result is not wholly among the improbabilities after all. 
We do not advise people to expect that the question is going to 
be settled secundem artem, in such terms as laid down in some pa- 
per or papers read befoi'e the Scientific Association or any of its 
sections ; although we do think that a valuable beginning in this very 
way was made last week by Professor Hill, of Washington. Scarcely 
would the Professor, or any one else in his behalf, we fanc}', claim 
that in that single efltort of his he had settled " for good" the great 
question as to " the economic and sociologic relations of the'Ca- 
nadian States and the United States, prospectively considered." 
And yet there are doubtless many amongst us who are thinking al- 
ready that he has done something important in clearing the ground 
of things that do nothing hut obscure the view and obstruct prog- 
ress. For he, certainly, does something to help us towards the 
solution of a problem, who begins by showing us the true character 
of certain impossible solutions that may be offered, and on which 
it were best not to waste much time. We hold, then, that Mr. Hill 
has done the state some service on both sides of the border, by his 
emphatic declaration that commercial union is impracticable. He 
rightly considers it an absurdity to think of having free ti'ade with 
Canada and at the same time protection against Great Bi'itain. 
That is, it would be so for the United States ; but if possible it 



38 SECTION I. 

would be still more absurd for Canada — having political union and 
commercial separation in relation to Great Britain, while vice versa 
having political separation and commercial union in relation to the 
great republic. Either science or common sense, or both, should 
quickly bring us to the conclusion that a jumble of political and 
economical relations so hopeless as this will never do. It would 
be preposterous (for the States) to establish a free trade policy 
with Canada and preserve a protection polic}^ with England. So 
says Professor Hill, speaking as a man of science, and it is safe to 
add that the first thousand men you can get together, taking such 
view of the matter as merely common sense suggests, will say the 
same thing. 

That commercial union will not do is affirmed by some of our- 
selves. This is the view taken by Sir Richard Cartwright, by Mr. 
James D. Edgar, and by the Globe. So we may consider the com- 
mercial union "fad" as having been abundantly kicked out already, 
unless, indeed, it be that either Mr. Witnan or the Mail has a 
kick or two more to add. But, says the Globe, "All this concerns 
not us ; what we are advocating is something else." Unrestricted 
— reciprocity to wit. Commercial union is " gone up," so the Globe 
admits ; but still it harps on that unrestricted reciprocity is the 
great thing. 

Mr. Hill is wide awake enough to see that, under the grit reci- 
procity arrangement, Canada would become a big side door, open 
for the free admission of British goods into the United States. Of 
course the Globe understands that this objection, if sustained, 
would be fatal to the grit plan from the start ; and so it tries with 
a tug of despair to make its feet stay on ground where there is no 
hold for them. — Toronto World. 



ECONOMIC AND 80C10L0QIC BELATIONS OF THE CANADIAN 
STATES AND THE UNITED STATES, PROSPECT- 
IVELY CONSIDEBED. 



ADDRESS 



CHARLES S. HILL, 

VICE PRKSIDENT, SECTION I, 
BEFORE THE 

SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS, 

american association foe the advancement of science, 

At the Toronto Mkkting, 

August, 1889. 



From the Pbocbbdings op the American Association for the Advancement 
OF Science, Vol. xxxviii. 



printed by 

the salem press publishing and printing co., 

SALEM, MASS. 

1890. 



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